Ruth Miller in The Poetry of Emily Dickinson has helpfully organized lists of the
poems according to topic (a great resource I just discovered!). This poem falls
into "Poems Rendering Compensation (Yoked Opposites)", along with
forty three others including

Here, Dickinson seems to be writing a clever and somewhat
tongue-in-cheek appeal for love. She begins by listing some fairly
conventional opposites: a state of deprivation is linked to a desired state of
greater fulfilment – that which seems opposite to the current, unfortunate
state.

Beggar Children

Johann Georg Meyer von
Bremen (1813-1886)

To those with physical constraints, it is
grace or gracefulness; to the homeless, the warmth of a fire; to those lost or
lonely, the clarifying and uplifting light of day; to the blind, seeing. The
seventh and eighth lines are more difficult, but I think they might be
paraphrased as "the captive will risk further oppression for the chance to
dream and choose; the beggar wishes the luxury of play."

The
last stanza begins in keeping with the list of opposites, but as an address to
someone. On first reading, the "Thee" might seem to be a
universal "You", but as the poems funnels visually down to
"Me", we realize that the speaker's remarks are aimed at a very
particular "Thee". If you find yourself lacking or incomplete, she
says, become enraptured, even if the "Divinity" you focus on is
"only / Me". It's a droll way
to invite a romance.

Dickinson uses quite a bit of simple rhyme
to add lightness to the poem. The first stanza has Entice, Grace, and face. The
second and third stanzas all are based on "ee" rhymes: be, see, play,
Thee, Divinity, only, and Me.

15 July 2015

If 'twas a Dream — made solid — just
The Heaven to confirm —
Or if Myself were dreamed of Her —
The power to presume —

With Him remain — who unto Me —
Gave — even as to All —
A Fiction superseding Faith —
By so much — as 'twas real —

F611
(1863)J518

The narrator suspects
the bliss of sleeping with her beloved happened in a dream. She takes the
disappearance of her "Bride" philosophically, however, for she has
the God-given gift of making dreams seem as real as if they had truly happened.
And who needs the complications of reality if dreaming makes it so?

The nighttime experience raises the
usual philosophical questions: how can we tell dream from reality? Could the
dream have been enfolded in another's dream – in this case, was the narrator
experiencing her beloved's dream?

Dickinson resorts to God: he is the
only one who can "confirm" what really happened. But in addition to
being all-knowing, God gives the narrator / Dickinson / all of us the ability
to experience "Fiction" so vividly as to seem real. This hyper-real
Fiction supersedes Faith.

The Dickinson Lexicon
defines "Faith" in this line as "Knowledge; sentiment based on
concrete evidence" and this makes a commonsense reading: the imaginative
world is potentially more real than the knowledge-based. In this case, the
dream creation was more "solid" than the empty bed.

I take that last stanza as Dickinson broadly accounting for her powerful
poetic imagination. Whether it is a lover, an Abyss, or death, she experiences
it as truly – more truly – than a 'real' experience. Dickinson does concede
that God gives this ability "to All", but this strikes me as an
afterthought.

I am reminded of of Marianne Moore's famous "Ars Poetica" in
which she writes that good poetry should have "imaginary gardens with real
toads in them". That is the
landscape Dickinson inhabited, too.

Judith Farr argues
convincingly that the poem is written with Sue in mind. In The Passion of Emily Dickinson, she has this to say:
""When Lavinia first gave [Sue] Emily's manuscripts, Sue marked them
in pencil according to theme: Love, Nature, Death, and so on. She marked this
poem with the initial 'S', appearing to acknowledge its relevancy to herself"
(p.160).

I don't think a biographical
interpretation adds much to the poem, however. Certainly Dickinson spent no
effort on fleshing out the beloved. She is just an exemplar of the poem's
greater point about Fiction vs. Faith.

05 July 2015

From Cocoon forth a
Butterfly
As Lady from her Door
Emerged — a Summer Afternoon —
Repairing Everywhere —

Without Design — that I could trace
Except to stray abroad
On miscellaneous Enterprise
The Clovers — understood —

Her pretty Parasol be seen
Contracting in a Field
Where Men made Hay —
Then struggling hard
With an opposing Cloud —

Where Parties — Phantom as Herself —
To Nowhere — seemed to go
In purposeless Circumference —
As 'twere a Tropic Show —

And notwithstanding Bee — that worked —
And Flower — that zealous blew —
This Audience of Idleness
Disdained them, from the Sky —

Till Sundown crept — a steady Tide —
And Men that made the Hay —
And Afternoon — and Butterfly —
Extinguished — in the Sea —

F610
(F610)J354

This lovely poem recalls Solomon's wisdom
in the Biblical book Ecclesiastes:
both the verse about eating, drinking, and being merry; as well as that about
dust to dust. There is also a hint of Aesop's fable praising the hard-working
ant in contrast to the pleasure-loving musical cricket.

The
poem begins as the butterfly, metaphorically compared to a Lady, emerges on a
summer afternoon and begins flitting about without discernable purpose or
pattern. While the narrator dismisses this activity as some "miscellaneous
Enterprise", the wiser "Clovers – understood". It is pollinators
such as butterflies, after all, that ensure clovers' continued presence in the
meadow.

As the butterfly
feeds and suns, wings upright, Dickinson zooms out so that we see laborers
mowing the meadow. It's hard work, and Dickinson immediately and comically contrasts
it with the butterfly "struggling hard" against an "opposing
Cloud" to join other butterflies wheeling about. They are
"Phantom", their destination "Nowhere", their flight
patterns "purposeless". It seems to the narrator that they are just
showing off their lovely colors and grace.

The Clover knows ...

So
far the poem seems as much commentary on ladies as it does on butterflies. Both
groups of wandering idlers disdainfully watch the working population – here
laborers, bees, and flowers (whose work is unclear, but who are tethered to the
ground and must bow and blow with every puff of wind). But in the last stanza
Dickinson reminds us that all are destined for oblivion. Converting the sky to
sea (as she has in several previous poems), the approach of night becomes a relentless
Tide that carries all in its path to the sea where they are
"Extinguished". It is not just the haymakers and butterflies that are
swallowed up, but time as well. The afternoon is extinguished by night as
surely as the laborer and the idler.

This
last stanza forces us to re-think the rest of the poem. When darkness drowns
the light, when life and time are over, what does it matter if we have laid up
hay or honey, or been prudent like Aesop's hard-working ants; or, like lady and
butterfly, flitted about, conducting miscellaneous Enterprise in the finery of
our prime? (And I suspect Dickinson appreciated the ecological role of both
butterfly and lady in their respective niches.) "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity,"
writes Solomon in Ecclesiastes (12:8,
King James Bible). "All things come alike to all: there is
one event to the righteous, and to the wicked…" (9:2). "There is
nothing better for a man", Solomon concludes, than that he should eat and
drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour (2:24).

Dickinson writes the
poem in a quiet, observational tone. There are sixteen words of at least three
syllables and this lends the poem a rather stately pace. They lead up to
"Extinguished" in the final line, – a rich,
iambic word that quietly puts to eternal bed the butterfly emerging from cocoon
in the first line. Dickinson as observer can find "no Design" in the
butterfly's movements that day, but as she contrasts it with the quotidian work
going on in the meadow we see both as emblematic of a lovely and ephemeral summer's
day.

26 June 2015

A Night — there lay
the Days between —
The Day that was Before —
And Day that was Behind — were One —
And now — 'twas Night — was here —

Slow — Night — that must be watched away —
As Grains upon a shore —
Too imperceptible to note —
Till it be night — no more —

F609
(1863)J471

Dickinson depicts a sleepless night using a
rather numbing repetitive structure in the first stanza and a very slow pace in
the second.The first stanza could be
paraphrased as "It was night." Dickinson stretches the notion out
every which way, expanding on the notion of "night" as if counting
sheep. The night is between two days: there is one Before and one Behind. It
all seems one with the endless night.

painting, Lois Lang

Dickinson
sprinkles various rhymes throughout the stanza, increasing the repetitiveness.
There are the repeating Day/Days and Night, plus two "and"s and four
uses of "was". "Lay"
rhymes with "Day" and all the whispery "w" sounds seem to
beg for drowsiness to take over: between, was, was, were, One, now, 'twas, was.
There's not an active verb in the entire stanza. One imagines the poet lying in
bed making a little chant about the situation.

The second stanza creeps along in a wearier
voice. "Slow – Night – " is a very slow spondee with its long vowels
and dashes. Long vowels predominate: slow, night, away, grains, shore, too, note,
night, no, more. Watching the night away is as tedious as trying to discern the
individual grains of sand on the beach. The moments seem endless.

23 June 2015

So glad we are — a stranger'd deem'Twas sorry – that we were —For where the Holiday – should be –There publishes – a Tear —Nor how Ourselves be justified —Since Grief and Joy are doneSo similar — An OptizanCould not decide between — F608 (1863) J329

Tears of joy and tears of grief – the manifestation of both emotions is so similar that the most discerning individual, or even an eye doctor, can't tell which is which. I personally find this an exaggeration, but Dickinson builds this light little poem around the conceit.

Who is happy here?Photo, Mauricio Lima, Getty Images, 2012

It's a familiar irony: we are overflowing with happiness, experiencing a "Holiday" of feeling. In the first stanza it is a stranger who can't tell that the crying person is experiencing joy. In the second it is an "Optizan" – a great made-up word – who can't distinguish between the two emotional extremes.
I do like Dickinson's observation that "Grief and Joy are done / So similar" as if emotions are things one does as well as feels. Perhaps there is a very fine line between extremes. Surely if we have a sudden rush of joy it is because the potential for grief lay equally close to the surface. The strong potentials evoke similar responses.
Dickinson uses a very regular ballad form for the poem. You could sing "Yellow Rose of Texas" to it. The first two lines emphasize the emotions rather than the people: "So glad … / Twas sorry…"

David Preest says this is one of three poems Dickinson sent Samuel Bowles who had taken a trip to Europe in 1862. This one might have been the one she wrote on his return.

Poem F 1038

Great Nature not to disappointAwaiting Her that Day —To be a Flower, is profoundResponsibility —

The Dickinson Blog Project

I plan to read and comment on all of Emily Dickinson's 1789 poems in chronological order. Scroll down to see earlier poems, or else browse the Archives. You can also use the Search function (below the Header). I think this is going to be a wonderful adventure!

I'm using R.W. Franklin's Reading Edition of the collected poems. I title the poems by the first line and at the end of the poem identify its Franklin number (e.g., F220) followed by the date Franklin assigns, and then by the numbers assigned by Thomas H. Johnson.

About Me

I've written poetry and short prose most of my life but have only been intermittently published. I think I'm a better reader than a writer. I grew up in Arizona and Oklahoma but lived most of my adult life in California: San Francisco Bay Area and Arcata -- Goddess country! Until the very recent past I lived in Christchurch New Zealand. But now I'm back in the Bay Area.
I have a BA in Humanities and an MA in English Literature. I love to work with writers, particularly in the science fiction genre. My favorite job was teaching English at a community college, although I've also enjoyed doing oral histories. I've spent a lot of years doing market research fieldwork and I have to admit that I had a lot of good times there, too. I think I'm the sort of person who enjoys things. The glass is usually more than half full.